It unnerved Shepard to see the way she'd come so dark compared to the way she was going. She knew what it was to destroy hundreds of thousands of people with the push of a button, and she hadn't liked the sense of being so remote from it—though she was grateful at not having been closer. She still felt sick when she had to think about it, however sound her reasoning at the time had been.

This, clearing this geth server though, this was somehow worse. A bloodless battle in which there was no resistance, no real enemy, just the pixelated neuron-like tendrils representing the Reaper's control, and her tearing her way through without any real resistance on the part of the geth. It made her feel…unclean.

"Legion, are you sure there's nothing we can do?" she asked, pausing where she stood. She'd been running the whole time, but was not out of breath. Her lungs and legs didn't protest. There was no physical toll to the activity. Not that this surprised her, but it was what the forepart of her mind expected. But here, it was all mind over matter, her body comfortably at rest back on Rannoch, a million miles away. Or more. Worlds away, even.

"The best that can be done is to continue removing Reaper influence," Legion answered, a holographic image of him appearing nearby. "Does something trouble you, Shepard-Captain?"

Shepard glanced over her shoulder again at the great dark, warehouse-like space. "Yeah. This is all…it's very bloodless. Battles shouldn't be this easy, you know?" She sighed, aware that although she produced the correct sound, air did not move through her lungs, nor did any of the stress or distress bleed off.

"We are not sure we understand."

Shepard sighed again, still not feeling the usual perk after having done so. She had to give Legion credit for allowing such perfect mimicry of organic gestures and expressions. Then, she wondered at the presence of these transference pods at all. Had the geth been hoping to communicate with someone? An ambassador, perhaps?

She pulled herself back on task. "Bloodless solutions tend to become easy solutions. Like the genophage. Like Indoctrination. People aren't dying, so the solution is more socially acceptable." It also made those same bloodless solutions prone to abuse, because they were no-kill alternatives. They 'fixed the problem' without 'violating the sanctity of life' and never mind what the hidden costs or collaterals were. Look at krogan culture. Look what happened when someone did get Indoctrinated. And people like the Illusive Man thought it was okay…

"We appreciate your concern for our people," Legion said. "But this is necessary."

"I know. It's still regrettable."

"Yes, it is. Thank you, Shepard-Captain."

Shepard glanced at Legion. "I feel…" she paused, swallowed out of habit. "I feel like a marauder. I'm one woman m—killing an entire city. And no one fights back." She wondered if, had she been talking to anyone else, the words would have come out quite so haunted.

An old instructor echoed in her head, trying to prepare her recruits for the cold, hard reality they might one day have to face: taking the life of another living being. 'Soldiers don't murder. We kill.'

And then there were shits like Kai Leng, who tried to void that statement.

She shook herself. Not here. Not now. Leng was later, and she hoped Miranda steered clear of him. She would prefer all her friends and comrades did. It didn't help to look at the matter objectively: that technically, he'd killed a terminally ill man, one who was getting close to his departure date anyway. She knew that Thane, in his prime, would have handily mopped the floor with Leng. The fact remained that in her mind that Thane was one of the strongest people she knew. And Leng killed him.

She shook herself again. Leng was tomorrow's problem. Next week's problem. Today, she had the geth and the quarians on her plate, and didn't need any side dishes.

"We do not consider this murder, Shepard. Geth are not, strictly speaking, alive."

"But put enough of them together and there's you," Shepard answered. "Put enough of them together, and there are individuals like you."

The next question came out quietly, almost halting. "Would it help if we pointed out that you may be projecting?"

Shepard chuckled sadly. "Not really. I'm sure I am." After Aratoht, how could she not? "But if I don't look at the geth and see people, who will?"

To her surprise, Legion reached out one hand and gently touched hers. Not sure if this was mimicry of a human behavior, Shepard curled her fingers around his, surprised to feel something nondescriptly solid where his holographic hand should be. "We appreciate the sentiment, Shepard-Captain."

Then, as if he suddenly heard something. "We should proceed. Please continue as before. The Old Machine's influence must be disrupted." The hologram flickered out, leaving Shepard alone in the strange world of the Geth Consensus.

"Yeah," Shepard agreed to the open air, beginning to jog along again, noticing that the light levels in her peripheral vision began to dim ever so slightly.

It was an awful feeling, and left her feeling contaminated, as she considered the implications of one person—even an N7—destroying an entire city all by herself without a mark to show for it. There was no opposition; there were no fleeing masses, no civilians, no children. No buildings burned or collapsed, no stray animals trying to reach owners trapped beneath collapsed rubble of homes. There was no odor of powdered duracrete, no billowing smoke, or blood or death, no acrid fumes.

It was a cold, clinical, sterile kind of war, and she found herself yet again understanding one of the most basic precepts of the N-program: war is ugly. It's supposed to be ugly. That's why it's something to be avoided. But when it can't be avoided, when it becomes necessary…that's where you come in.